Veggie Pho

'Tis the season for soup!!  This is the third time in the past two week's I've made soup.  And as you probably know, soup usually makes a pretty decent size batch and you usually end up eating it for days afterward.  So basically.. I've been eating soup pretty much every day. 

The nice thing with most soups is if you don't like a particular ingredient, you can leave it out or swap it for something else.  Ideally, my perfect veggie pho would have everything below, but sometimes I forget ingredients at the grocery store, run out of something etc and I don't have everything I want in it, but it's still delicious.  In the batch of Pho that is pictured above, I didn't have seitan (which is a vegetarian meat substitute made from vital wheat gluten... and what 'mock duck' is made out of) or any of the garnishes.  But alas, it was still super delicious and even my 3 year old ate every bite in his bowl, and my omnivorous husband went back for seconds. 

Ingredients
4-8 cups vegetable broth
A few TBS of oil
8 oz. fresh mushrooms washed and cut in half
1-2" knob of fresh ginger - peeled and grated
dash of cinnamon
handful of shredded carrots 
1 block of extra firm tofu, pressed and cut in to cubes
1 package of seitan
1/4 head of cauliflower cut in to pieces and washed
1/2-1 head of fresh broccoli cut in to pieces and washed
Asian rice noodles

fresh cilantro as a garnish
bean sprouts as a garnish
wedge of lime, squeezed as a garnish

Directions
Start by draining your tofu and setting it up to be pressed, so that it can set while you're doing everything else with your soup. 

Heat oil in your stock pot and add your mushrooms to sautee.  When they're coated in oil and starting to darken a bit, add a splash of the veggie broth and cover until they're nice and soft.  Then add the rest of your veggie broth and cook on High.  *I usually start with 4 cups/one carton of the broth and then have another standing by to add more as needed.

Add grated ginger & cinnamon.  Taste and adjust if necessary. Add cauliflower, carrots and seitan and cook until the cauliflower is soft.  Add tofu.

When your soup is pretty much done, add the broccoli and rice noodles and remove from heat - let stand for ~5 mins until broccoli is done to your liking.  (the broccoli and rice noodles both cook very quickly so it you put them in while everything else is still cooking, they will get overdone)

Garnish with fresh cilantro sprigs, bean sprouts and squeezed lime.  Serve.